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17 Songs You Probably Love (And Don’t Know The Name Of)

Music is funny. We’re exposed to it all the time, whether we
notice or not—you hear music on the radio as you commute, on the gym, in
cartoons, movies, TV intros, movie trailers, etc. With repetition, our brains
begin to memorize these songs, even if we’re not aware of it. Since we’re not
always in control of the music we’re listening to, we can learn literally
hundreds of musical pieces in our brain (because apparently our brain is so
much better at memorizing melodic and rhythmic patterns than, say, lyrics), many of which we only know 'by ear'.

So your brain is a chest full of songs you love but can’t
find because you’ve heard them out of a context that would allow you to know
their names. This is a list of songs that I can guarantee you’ve heard, maybe
you even love, but probably don’t know what they’re called. I’m dividing them
in three categories: pop music (referring to stuff you hear on the radio),
classical scores (a term loosely used here) and trailer themes.

If you’ve ever seen a movie where a white character is acting
black, or when black characters are being stereotypical black characters in
front of white people, then you’ve heard this song. This one is particularly
hard to describe because the lyrics are a bit hard to get if you don’t already
know what they’re saying. Either way, it’s a fun song, and the words are “It’s
tricky to rock a rhyme, to rock a rhyme that’s right on time it’s tricky!”

If you’re a “How I Met Your Mother” fan, you certainly know
this song as the ‘roadtrip song’ Marshall and Ted would play on loop and
eventually sing while on dozen-hour long roadtrips. If you haven’t you’re very
likely to recognize the fun patterns in the hook’s melody. The song is from a
Scottish duo called The Proclaimers, and it rocks ass.

This is my favorite. You probably know it as “That super
fucking sweet song Spongebob sings while playing on Squidward’s band” because
it’s, without a doubt, one of the most epic and badass moments in animation,
ever. You might mistakenly think it’s a Van Halen track, but in reality it’s a
song by a dude with an incredible voice that at some point sang in an Iron
Butterfly cover band.

This song is everywhere, but comes from a band that only had
a few real major hits (unless I’m mistaken). You might have heard it recently
as sung by Jim Carrey in “Yes Man”. This is another one of those songs that get
stuck in our heads because of the melody. In particular: “I would
understaaaaaand!”

CSI NY Theme, among many, many other things—probably know it
as “Teenage Wasteland”. If you haven’t heard this song before, you are either
lying, have some manner of selective memory loss, or were born after July 2014.
Everyone can remember the badass intro.

That epic song we all know from “2001: A Space Odyssey” and
the millions of movies and TV shows that at some point spoofed or referenced it
was composed by Strauss, inspired by Friedrich Nietzsche’s book by the same
name.

It’s German name is “Auf dem Wasser zu singen”, but this
beautiful lied you’re most likely to recognize and remember as “Oh man that one’s
beautiful!” It’s also played in the awesome movie “Battle Royale” along with
several other original and classical pieces. It’s to date my favorite ever
movie soundtrack. Well, after “The Lion King”.

Yes, the song that will immediately bring to mind the fun
image of a bunch of clowns and carnies prancing around between elephants and
lions was actually designed to evoke the image of blood-thirsty and
intimidating gladiators. How’s that for cultural misinterpretation?

You might remember this one from the movie by the same name, and I’m pretty sure at some point it was used as a theme for the Olympics. This is another one of those overused themes to add a feeling of largeness and epicness, though by now it’s more often used in a comedic way.Cliff
Friend — “The Merry Go-Round Broke Down”

Did you know that the Looney Tunes theme isn’t actually the
Looney Tunes theme, but a composition with the awkward and poignant name “The
Merry Go-Round Broke Down”? It was written about a scene that describes, well,
pretty much what the title suggests, and was eventually arranged to function as
the Looney Tunes theme. The original version has lyrics, and there’s one where Daffy Duck sings them.

This song is a bit complicated—so much so, in fact, that you
might have a hard time memorizing it. You will definitely remember hearing it
in a million different places because it’s very often used (hell, my band uses
it to open gigs). It’s a fun and energetic song with an intense and dark
backdrop that rises and rises and rises and rises.

Trailer Music

Trailer music is the most frustrating “How the fuck is that
epic track called” because 90% of the time we listen to them, we like them.
Worse still, there’s no way from a trailer to know what the song is called. If
we somehow manage to find out what the song is called, we’ll have an even
shittier time in finding it, since most of the people who make these tracks
only sell them to advertising agencies, as they’re specifically composed to
appear in movie trailers.

This is a topic I know myself because for about 6 years of
my life, my hobby was to make
my own trailers for movies and stuff I like, and give them an absurdly epic
treatment. Through years of searching and asking and downloading, I’ve
accumulated an enormous catalog of trailer music—over 3,000 songs. I’ve recognized
hundreds of songs in movies (for instance, the second song in this trailer I did ages ago
was later used in the “Harry Potter and the Deadly Hallows” trailer) and I’ve
seen some are repeatedly used. Here are the two most popular I remember, which
you’ve definitely heard.